Friday, October 05, 2012

I saw an ad on Craig's List the other day that made me look twice. We all know that Craig's List has all kinds of ads. Some are real and others are fake. Some are even illegal and get people arrested. This ad, however, made me think of my daughter Traci who is studying to become a Vet Tech.
The ad was for a Senior Wildlife Technician. Part of the job description read "Humanely evict and permanently exclude squirrels,raccoons and opossums. Just how do you evict a squirrel? Do you climb up a tree and bribe it with food? I can just see the wildlife tech climbing a tree and telling the squirrel that he is being evicted. What part of the "lease" did the squirrel violate? How demoralizing to be permanently excluded from the only home a squirrel has ever known. Yeah, dude, just try and catch me. Remember I can jump from tree to tree. Can you Mr. Wildlife Tech?
And how do you plan to evict or exclude my buddies the raccoons and opossums? I'm outside all day long running and jumping from tree to tree. The raccoons and opossums also known as possums in my neighborhood are, sadly a little slower than I am and don't jump as far and fast as I do. My buddies are more likely to take hikes at night. Me, I would rather sleep then. I'm nice. What have I done to you? I don't knock over trash cans in the middle of the night like they do. And what about my skunk friends. You think they will be easy to evict? They'll put up a real stink about this.
Just how do you plan to keep us out of here, Mr. Wildlife Tech? Permanently, you say? Ha just watch us. We'll be back. Huh? What? Traps...you mean you will put us in cages? Horrors! And you will take us far away from all our friends and all we've known. What do you mean we are getting in the way of progress. You humans just keep taking our homes away from us. Don't say we'll be just as happy in our new place. I want a lawyer! You can't evict us we have rights! It will be nicer where we are going? You say that now. We all have kids. How many times have you moved? Was it a 'humane" move?
Well that's progress I guess. We all know that animals get in the way of us humans. We think it is better to humanely exclude these animals because they may cause problems. Maybe there are too many in a certain area. We've all seen the stories about "critters" getting stuck in the chimney or getting inside attics of homes and causing problems. Sometimes it must be tough to be a Senior Wildlife Technician. Get the nets ready.

i'm assuming the proper procedure for evicting a squirrel would involve posting an eviction notice on the tree, which would be met with the "residents" laughing (do squirrels laugh? they seem like they'd be chortlers, really....) and throwing rotten acorns at it.